The UK's Bribery Act was passed with all party support before the general election in 2010. I stress, all party support.
And now the ConDem government is delaying its implementation just at the time the business lobby cries foul about it for reasons that can only be summarised as being driven the fact that they don't want to be bound by it, with all that implies.
As the OECD have said:
The Chair of the OECD's Working Group on Bribery has expressed concern that the entry into force of the new Bribery Act is to be delayed.
“It is very disappointing that despite public commitments, the UK will further delay this important Act to tackle bribery and corruption,” said Mark Pieth, Chair of the Working Group. “Establishing a level playing field for international business is as important now as ever and will help strengthen the global economic recovery. As a G20 country, the UK bears a special global responsibility and should lead by example.”
We took long enough to get this far - too long.
And now we still can't deliver an Act that says a UK company must not allow its staff to commit bribery wherever they might be.
Well it's time we did. And it says an enormous amount about the Tories that they'll acquiesce to demands to delay this essential Act designed to prevent the corruption that destroys markets and opprtunities for millions and maybe billions throughout the world.
Shame on them.
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I can see both sides of this argument. First of all it is disgusting and totally unacceptable that a modern world leading state like the UK took so long to introduce have adequate bribery laws and now implementation is looking like being delayed. On the other side, if you read the UK Bribery Law there are many grey areas which need clarification or tidying up. A guidance paper was due to be released last month (not sure if it did) which was going to set out how firms should meet the UK Bribery Law this may go some way to explaining or dealing with the grey areas. One of those grey areas was with reference to benefits and when they became bribe payments. As you have commented on the UK Bribery Act I would expect you to have a good knowledge of it…it actually goes much further than FATCA in the states that makes it clear that greasing the wheels (making minor payments to minor officials etc) in some countries is acceptable, the UK Bribery Act in its current state does not allow for that. Storm in a tea cup sort of thing, I would expect that any delays are simply to either update the law to deal with grey areas or to arrange for sufficient time to bring out the guidance etc.
I’m not entirely surprised, if disappointed.
Local media in Jersey were interested in the fact that people here who have no business operations in the UK and no plans to live there would still be subject to the Act, because the Jersey passport is a British passport issued in Jersey – meaning that they would be treated as British.
By analogy this would mean that tax exiles who hold UK passports would be subject to investigation if there were grounds for believing corrupt practices. You can see why certain wealthy people might be pushing Mr Osborne to kick this into the long grass…